Coming off a season in which Aaron Judge set a new home run record, the Yankees captain homered on his first ball as New York opened the season with a 5-0 win over the San Francisco Giants on Thursday.
Gerrit Cole (1-0) struck out 11 in six scoreless innings, a record for the Yankees’ season opener. In his major league debut, 21-year-old Anthony Volpe went 0-for-2 with a walk, a stolen base and two good defensive plays.
Gleyber Torres added a two-run homer in the fourth and Judge hit a bat-breaking RBI single in a two-run seventh, including DJ LeMahieu’s single.
Logan Web (0-1) struck out 12, the most in the Giants’ first game of the season. Cole and Webb joined Dave McNally and Sam McDowell in 1970, as well as Max Scherzer and Jacob DeGrom in 2019 as the only opposing starters to have double-digit strikeouts in a first game since 1901.
Only one violation was committed on the first day of the shot clock. JD Davis at the plate in the ninth inning and the game was over in two hours and 33 minutes.
For the Giants, the Venezuelans Wilmer Flores 3-0, Thairo Estrada 4-2. Puerto Rican Roberto Pérez 2-1.
For the Yankees, Venezuelans Gleyber Torres 3-1 with two runs scored and two RBIs, Oswaldo Cabrera 4-0.
